A heat exchanger is known from DE 29510720 U1 of the applicant, which has proven itself best as a coolant air cooler for gas turbines in particular. It has pipes for separating the heat-dissipating medium and the heat-absorbing medium. The pipes are situated meandering between an inlet manifold and an outlet manifold and have a heat-absorbing medium flowing through them. The heat-dissipating medium flows around these meandering pipes.
The stresses of a mechanical and thermal nature occurring because of the frequent load and temperature changes may be successfully decreased with the aid of the heat exchanger known from DE 29510720 U1. Furthermore, the meandering shaping of the pipe bundle allows a “downsizing” of the heat exchanger with unchanged performance. In spite of the listed advantages, there is still a need for even more compact and efficient heat exchangers, which are flexible, but nonetheless may be produced cost-effectively. Heat exchangers for solar power plants, in particular parabolic trough power plants, must additionally have more rapid startup speeds having high temperature gradients.